Who are pelvic rehab providers?

74% reported never working with children ages 12 and younger, and 34% reported never working with adolescents 13-20 years of age. Other age groups were fairly evenly represented. In terms of how many therapist treat male patients, let's look at another breakdown.

Male patients treated % of respondents

When we look at how the survey collected information about diagnoses, nearly 98% of respondents reported treating pelvic organ prolapse or fecal incontinence 0-20% of the time, whereas pelvic pain and urinary incontinence occurred more frequently as a condition treated. Many therapists listed general orthopedic conditions as appearing the most frequently on the caseload. Referral sources or providers who send patients for services include family practice, obstetrician/gynecologists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, urologists, chiropractors, other physical therapists, sex therapists, psychologists, midwives, acupuncturists, yoga instructors, naturopaths, "the internet", former patients, and massage therapists.

One question on the survey asked "what motivated you to enter the pelvic rehabilitation field?" Of the 396 people who answered this optional question, almost 1 of every 4 chose "personal history or family history" as the reason. 40% chose "practice or clinic need" which certainly corresponds to what we hear at live courses. Very often we are told that a therapist who usually treated the pelvic rehabilitation population went on leave or moved, and so the clinic needed to train another therapist. Many therapists wrote in comments about how they wanted to serve a population with true need, or help restore quality of life. Salaries ranged from $25,000 or less (2.5%), $25,000-$50,000 (12.4%), $50,000-$75,000 (44.9%), $75,000-$100-000 (26.3%), $100-$125,000 (3.2%), $125,000-$150,000 (1.2%), and $150,000 and higher (1%). Of the 403 who completed the survey, 8 were men.

389 of those who completed the survey also indicated ethnic origin. Results indicated that 86.1% are Caucasian, 4.5% Asian or Pacific Islander, and 1.5% Hispanic, 1% Filipino, with less than 1% indicating African American, Native American, or Other (included Asian Indian, Caribbean, Eurasian, Latino non-Hispanic, Latino American, and Middle East represented as write-in options.) Reported ages included 21.5% being age 30 or younger, nearly 40% in the category of 31-40 years of age, 23% ages 41-50, 14% 51-60 years, and the remaining approximately 2-3% in the category of 61-74 years of age.

We want to keep in mind that this is a sample of primarily physical therapists who, for the most part, are currently involved in treating at some level patients who have pelvic dysfunction. It appears that many of those who responded are working in outpatient, orthopedic settings, nearly all respondents are female, and most are Caucasian. If I were to go so far as make recommendations or state hopes for the results of future surveys, it would be that more pelvic rehabilitation providers offer a solid representation of the various ethnicities which also make up our patient populations, that more male therapists are treating patients with pelvic rehabilitation needs, and that we find pelvic rehabilitation providers working in a wide variety of settings, with more pediatric patients and with more male patients, so that we can catch the dysfunctions early on in a patient's life, and so that men and women have more of an equal chance at healthy pelvic function. Thank you to Kriterion for providing such detailed and interesting data, to the Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute for investing in this endeavor towards a pelvic therapy certification, and mostly, to all of the participants in this survey who provided thoughtful replies so that we can generate meaningful data and most importantly, so that we can move forward in this process of recognizing those who strive to be excellent pelvic rehabilitation providers.